LOS ANGELES?There were other stars at Disney-Pixar?s world premiere of the very enjoyable ?Wall-E? last weekend, but it was ?American Idol? runner-up David Archuleta who caused a commotion.

The diminutive David, followed around by a tall bodyguard, wore a jaunty hat and his winning, thrilled-to-be-here smile. He was among hundreds of guests who enjoyed the animated ?adventure across the galaxy? fittingly shown under a cloudless sky at the outdoor Greek Theater.

At sundown, director Andrew Stanton?s tale about Wall-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth Class) ? a robot who has been compacting the trash left by mankind for 700 years ? began. Pixar has done it again. ?Wall-E? is stunning, especially visually in its depiction of the robot as he toils around in a sepia-toned landscape dominated by skyscrapers of compacted garbage.

We mean this as a big compliment to the Pixar folks ? when will the law of averages catch up with those animation geniuses at Emeryville, California? They have been creating one excellent film after another. Based on the odds, John Lasseter?s team should have come out with a clunker or two by this time. But no ? in fact, they take animation film artistry and entertainment quotient even higher with each new film. ?Wall-E? is one of their very best yet.

After the screening, guests boarded shuttles that took them up the nearby Griffith Observatory for a reception with the stars, under the stars of a more heavenly kind.

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In ?Wanted,? James McAvoy?s cubicle-bound accountant is suddenly kissed on the lips by Angelina Jolie?s character. James? reaction ? a teeth-baring, very pleased smile ? probably didn?t require a lot of acting muscle from the fine actor.

?Well, hopefully, it was a good scene,? the Scotland native commented about being bussed by those famous full lips. ?Those scenes are always awkward and uncomfortable and never as sexy or as intimate as they look on film. There will be many people watching you. You probably just had a smelly sandwich and you?re worrying about that. You?re thinking that you probably should have brushed your teeth before you did the scene and things like that.?

?It?s really just one of those things,? said the actor who engaged in a pivotal sex scene with Keira Knightley in last year?s acclaimed film, ?Atonement.? It?s typical of the man to downplay stuff. In our interviews with him since his breakthrough role as the faun, Mr. Tumnus, in ?The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,? he has been consistent: simple, humble, sincere and honest.

So we are personally glad that ?Wanted,? his first American film, is an action film that kicks ass, with a dose of humor and lots of visual flair. ?Matrix? with humor is what some people are saying about the film which is the first English language effort of Timur Bekmambetov, who directed the two biggest hits in Russian history, ?Night Watch? and ?Day Watch.?

Chilled-out woman

?I never feel comfortable with them (sex scenes) but yeah, Angelina was nice,? James continued. ?I think it was the first scene that she shot for the movie. Yeah, it was her first day on the shoot. So it was like, ?Hello, how do you do? It?s nice to meet you. Let?s do the scene.? Wow. But it was fine.?

?It?s her ?down-to-earth-ness?,? declared James in his Scottish brogue when asked what surprised him the most about Angelina. She portrays Fox, a sexy woman who recruits James? geeky Wesley into The Fraternity. It?s a secret society headed by Morgan Freeman?s Sloan who unlocks Wesley?s dormant superhuman powers, including the ability to ?bend? the trajectory of bullets.

?She?s really a kind of a chilled-out woman,? the 29-year-old actor said about Brad Pitt?s partner. ?She?s really willing to have a laugh at her own expense. I think when you meet somebody like that, quite quickly you realize that you?re going to be all right and that you?re going to be able to have a relationship professionally. When you find out that she?s cast in the movie, you kind of go, ?Jesus, she?s one of the biggest superstars in the entire world.?

?She?s a fantastic actress but she is also hu mongously famous. You get a little bit intimidated but within five, 10 minutes, all of that disappears. She was really cool. I have a lot of respect for her as well.?

Paparazzi alert

With Angelina in the cast, did the presence of paparazzi around the set pose a problem? ?People ask me this and I completely understand why, from reading the papers,? answered the Golden Globe Best Actor nominee for ?Atonement.? ?I didn?t hang out with her at nighttime so I don?t know what her personal life is like after work. But when we?re making the film, I think I saw one paparazzo once in Chicago and that was it. We never had any problems making the film because of Angelina?s relationship with the paparazzi. I know. It was weird.?

He added, ?I think she had some troubles (with the paparazzi) in Prague, but it never impacted on what we were doing.?

James has been enjoying a hot career in recent years, including a crucial role in ?The Last King of Scotland.? He could hit the big leagues with ?Wanted,? which has the makings of a solid hit ? exciting action scenes and a good cast. If the film does succeed, he might enjoy less privacy. Typically, he doesn?t allow himself to get suckered into the buzz: ?If nobody sees this film, I don?t think it?s going to change for me at all. So we?ll have to wait and see. I?d be very unhappy if my life changed completely and became like that. I wouldn?t wish that type of situation on anybody but I don?t know. I just can?t see it happening.?

?Unfashionable? lifestyle

From all indications, James is hell bent on keeping a normal life with his wife, Anne-Marie Duff, a highly regarded actress who is nine years his senior. This year, British tabloids went crazy reporting that James, hailed by director Kevin Macdonald as the ?best British actor under 30 without question,? lives in an ?unfashionable? section of London and that gasp, he drives an old Nissan. But that?s exactly what we like about this guy.

When we teased him by saying, ?James McAvoy, action star!? he dismissed it with a shrug and a smile. ?When the script was first sent my way, it wasn?t an offer,? he said frankly. ?I went on to audition for it. I was completely surprised that they were at all interested in me. It?s not the kind of part that I usually play. I wouldn?t have cast myself in the part. But as I auditioned and met the director, I started to realize that nothing about what they wanted to do was going to be the usual way.

?I thought the script was quite good. I?ve seen lots of action movies. No matter how good the script is, it?s just another action movie. But after meeting Timur and seeing his previous work, after taking into consideration the fact that they were willing to cast somebody like me, that they didn?t want to sanitize the movie and that they wanted to make an adult action movie that was going to try to be different, I took on the role.?

Mystifying stunts

Grinning, he admitted that all the muscles he worked his ass off to get are gone by this time. James revealed that to prepare for his role, he ?had to go to the gym which is not my natural environment. But it was important for me that I didn?t get too ridiculously muscled. It was important that I didn?t become one of those actors who go grrrr, another day, another opportunity to take off my shirt.?

Of the film?s action scenes, filmed with bravado and visual wit by Timur, James admitted being mystified about the stunts he was allowed to do and not do: ?There were a couple of times when I thought, they wouldn?t let me jump through a glass window even though it?s just sugar glass. It wouldn?t have hurt me. It would have scratched my face at the very most. And yet there were a couple of stunts that they let me do where I was like, I can?t believe they?re letting me do this when they wouldn?t let me do that. Because some of the things they let me do were quite dangerous.?

?I have a tendency probably to take myself too seriously sometimes,? said James who was educated at St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic school in Glasgow. ?You?re not changing people?s lives. You?re providing entertainment for a couple of hours. If you can?t enjoy yourself when you?re making it, you should let someone else do it. There are times when it?s manic, chaotic and everybody loses their cool. But by and large, I really enjoyed this. There?s a little boy inside of every actor who wants to do one of these things, no matter how cool, highbrow or full of artistic integrity he is. There?s still a part of me that wants to do this.?

In good company

The only time at the press con that James gave a short reply was when a reporter brought up the father-son issue in the movie and asked him if he wanted to be like his dad. ?I don?t,? he answered. ?Most of us do.? James lived with his maternal grandparents when his parents separated when he was seven. He has reportedly not been in contact with his father since childhood.

He just finished ?The Last Station,? a film about the last year of Leo Tolstoy?s life. Playing the great Russian author?s acolyte, James is in good company again: Christopher Plummer is Tolstoy, Helen Mirren and Anne-Marie are his wife and daughter, respectively. James has been quoted as saying that contrary to rumors, he is not playing Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro?s film adaptation of ?The Hobbit.?

The man who enjoys camping and hiking by himself is off to a much-needed break. James said, ?I need to make some space because otherwise I?ll just constantly be making movies, publicizing movies and talking about myself. I think the audience can get sick of you so you need to give them a bit of time off as well.?

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.